Tasting Gaming: Day Three

                Last time on Tasting Gaming, we talked a little about the negative points of larger developers (and publishers,) being in direct competition with younger companies and younger IPs, but there’s a lot of good that could come from this. With the popularity of the kickstarted platformer projects (Yooka Laylee, Mighty No. 9 and BloodStained: Ritual of the Night,) the industry is starting to understand these may not be games for everybody, they may not appeal to casuals and may not create the “whale” customers that they desire but a large portion of the market desires these games and wants to see them do well. (A “whale” is a marketing term that describes a consumer who spends a metric shit-ton of money on micro-transactions and DLC.)

One hopeful thought that keeps floating around in my mind, banging around my skull, waiting, yearning to be let out, is that if these kickstarted projects do well and are relatively commercially successful then the “Triple A” publishers and developers will begin to take the platforming genre seriously and invest the time, money, effort and marketing into making them relevant again. If the demand becomes apparent, if the moneys there then a product or service will be made by someone, and you have to make sure you’re that someone, look at the void left by the popularity of adventure games that TellTale Games continues to cash in on over and over just by placing relevant skins over the same engine, its remarkable. My vision of the future is Nintendo seeing the current success of games like Axiom Verge cashing in on the void left by the lack of traditional Metroid games and going “okay, we have to take this IP seriously once again.” Look at the barrage of retro games flooding Steam in the wake Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight.

                It’s not at all that I don’t want to see these new fresh IPs do well, they may possibly differentiate themselves enough to coexist alongside their predecessors, it’s just the idea of these kickstarted projects bringing back childhood classic like Crash Bandicoot or Castlevania excites me so much. I’m just as much ready to see them thrive on their own and dominate the market at the cost of Big Business’s ignorance and dependence on sample groups, it’s just in a world dominated by money it’d be dumb of these companies to not take this seriously or at least give other companies the opportunity to fill the crater left by the meteor that is ignored gaming mascots and genres.

                 I’d love to hear your guys thoughts maybe leave a comment below or send your emails to: Taplaysanexus@gmail.com or Tweeter at me @Playanexus yo.

Tasting Gaming: Day Two

With the success of KickStarted projects like Mighty No. 9 and the recent success of the kickstarted BloodStained: Ritual of the Night and Yooka-Layley, there has been an awful lot of talk about the direction the gaming industry is going in, and I’m absolutely loving it. I have a couple thoughts on the topic. One question that came to mind recently is, what affect will these kickstarted Intellectual Properties (IPs,) have on the original IPs they were based off of, or whose fan-base funded these games in the first place?

 So I’m super excited about Mighty No. 9’s Fall release, and to prepare myself I ran right to my xbox360 to download Megaman 9 and When BloodStained was announced I did the same thing rushed to my 360 to download Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The Banjo-Kazooie Series is also on the Xbox Live Arcade, even though I will get around to buying these games for review, I personally wasn’t so excited to do so as I am more just excited for Yooka-Layley as an original IP and that’s because my connection to Rare stems more from Donkey Kong and my love of 3D platformers stems from Crash Bandicoot. I can’t be alone on this I can almost guarantee if the sales of Megaman, Banjo-Kazooie and Castlevania and their respective ports haven’t increased already they will as we near the release dates of these projects.

 With the resurgence of the Platformer (whether it be 2D, 2.5D or 3D) will the larger Publishers like Microsoft, like Capcom, like Konami, wind up cashing in on the success of these fresh IPs and start releasing new titles in the series that they’re based off of? For example if Konami saw BloodStained do well after its release, and responds with a “Symphony of the Night 2” then not only will Igarashi’s new IP be in direct competition with its predecessor but also will act like advertisement for Konami’s Project if it doesn’t differentiate itself enough. Additionally if the larger publishers do decide to go in this direction will their sheer popularity and monetary strength be enough to bully the little guy off of the market, I guess that’s up to the gaming community to decide.

I’m going to keep this one short today, For day 3 of Tasting Gaming I want to touch a little more on this subject and additionally talk about the future direction of gaming. I’d love to hear your guys thoughts maybe leave a comment below or send your emails to: Taplaysanexus@gmail.com or Tweeter at me @Playanexus yo.

Tasting Gaming: Day One

So I was “Chain-Watching” YouTube videos on my Xbox when I had the thought “I’m going to give my console a rest,” “not play games!?” I asked myself, and this got me to thinking. I don’t do a lot of console gaming as of late. I’ve been chiseling away at Final Fantasy Record Keeper, a mobile free to play game. Building my Steam Library and I’ve been enjoying platformers on my phone, on smoke breaks and lunch breaks. In no way do I think console gaming is dying nor do I believe mobile gaming is the future. What I do know is that for a person who works full-time, sleeps and at least tries to have a social-life, time is quite disproportioned. If you don’t rollerblade instead of walking, have nitrous in your car and use jetpacks instead of stairs then there just simply isn’t enough time in the day.

      The trend of games I’ve been playing lately, is that I pick them up put some time into it, put it away with the quickness and eventually later on in the day pick it up from where I left off. In these modern times games have to be accessible, not easy but accessible. I find with many games if I happen to direct my focus elsewhere, I have a problem picking up games without being given any context. I’m not saying games should be easier, nor that they should be shorter or that they should sacrifice story or narrative for time’s sake. But you should be able to play games in brief squirts in-between life outside of your hobby. Mobile-Gaming caters to these needs, as well as being an accessible platform for casual games, like mahjong and the King’s games which opens gaming to such a larger audience. Factors like these are why companies like Nintendo and Konami are drawn towards going mobile. The thing here is that the games themselves are far more profitable than consoles and corporate greed may impose transitioning to mobile on us similarly to the way “always online” and social features have been in the past. On the other hand despite all the new technology introduced to the games market, most gaming is done in front of a monitor with a controller in hand, the most welcomed change made was going wireless, to make playing in your home that much easier. Even though I’m playing these older platformers on my phone, there is a disconnect that stems from the lack of a controller and no matter how many little puzzle games and casual games I come across I’m yet to hold one near and dear to my heart, in an attempt to streamline for simplicity and accessibility so much is chopped off that not all but a lot of these games are forgettable. (I do highly recommend Peggle and Quell despite of this.)

     I realize the bias, I’m not a “hardcore” gamer (though a passionate one,) and I’m also not the type to beat a game in a night or in one run unless the game absolutely compels me to (and time permits.) I enjoy longer games, not fluffed-out games and not playing the same 30hrs several times (looking at you Lightning Returns!) but a game like Skyrim where the world is so massive so many details about the land, the people and the mythology are scattered throughout and despite having an overall story lingering above you, you can get to your first objective turn around never see the story again, play not only for hundreds of hours but in short spurts, save wherever and pick up where you left off. The beautiful thing about our industry, as dad-joke level cheesy as it is, there really is something for everyone, to fulfill everyone’s needs and I believe this is one of the many reason why Interactive media will go down in history as one of if not the superior art forms.


A wonderful channel on YouTube made a couple videos in regards to "Humane Game Design" and exit points that are very insightful on how game design affects the players ability to hop in and out of a game, check out the video below:

Tasting Gaming: Day Zero

Welcome to Tasting Gaming, Here we're going to do little bloggy “article” things, game reviews and general game discussion. I know there won't be a lot of people reading this at first, I imagine future nerds digging through archived content and stumbling upon this. So here-goes my gaming experiences:

I remember watching the adults as a young kid, late 90s, playing sports games and I’d watch and want to get involved but just didn’t have the capacity to do so. Later on in time, these adults got into games like Mortal Kombat, Medal of Honor and Resident Evil. Around this time, I could play games and get involved but couldn’t afford modern Gen hardware. I bought my first two consoles from yard sales, that’s an old-school Craigslist or one of those “for sale” Facebook groups. A young bright eyed Tyler purchased an Atari 2600 and like a dozen games for a crinkled, three-cornered yellowing five dollar bill, I personally was only fond of Adventure, Yars Revenge and Combat, (of course Pac-Man but I personally experience that through Plug-n-Play consoles that poor kids used to get for Christmas.) The second console (actually purchased before the Atari,) was a Sega Genesis where I was introduced to actual Mortal Kombat gameplay, Sonic and Knuckles, as well as ToeJam and Earl.

I fondly recall my dad and his friends, his friends had brought a Super Nintendo to our house, and let me play Super Mario World, we all got so into the game, the classic platformer creating that unique tension that the genre is known for, and I died, cheap death probably, but I swore and it was the first time my dad let me swear in front of company because we were all caught up in the game and a unified reaction to the experience. Around this time I also got into Gameboy-era stuff I owned the original Gameboy, Gameboy Color and GBA within a short time of each other. This began my Era of Pokemon Games, that I played up to Emerald, The Second Generation (Johto,) being my favorite. I was also introduced to the Zelda Oracle series, which made me fall in love with the top down adventure classic and that shovel though.

I’ll never forget my first brand new console was the updated PS1, (which is when I first starting hearing the grey Playstation referred to as the “PSX.”) the games I got with the console were Final Fantasy VIII and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game to this day, the Final Fantasy Series being my favorite series to the point that most of my tattoos are Final Fantasy oriented. Final Fantasy holds a special place in my heart which I’m sure I’ll go into more detail later but I would like present that as a Bias of Mine. Tony Hawk as series, the Pro Skaters being my favorite, really captured me in a way sports games of the time couldn’t, I’m still not attracted towards sports games of the current generation but I’m very excited about THPS5, I loved attempting to 100% the Tony Hawk games and played loyally up to American Wasteland. A few honorable mentions from this era for me personally are the Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Abe’s odyssey and a tip of my hat to the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games of course.

 I was a late-adopter in terms of the N64 but I spent a large portion of my life playing that console and we’ll be diving deeper into that elsewhere on through Blogger. I loved my Playstation 2, there is an endless library of games, just game I played alone for that console, especially with its backwards compatibility making gaming very accessible for someone of my income demographic, it was a game-changer in terms of quality games and the normalization of a console being a media device in an in a growing amount of people’s home with its ability to play DVDs. Final Fantasy X was beautiful and a noble bow-out on Square’s part. The introduction of Kingdom Hearts, captured my attention, my heart and was where I first delved in Disney Culture (sans the Lion King.) DrakenGard was one of my favorite games, I don’t remember much besides thoroughly enjoying it and never saw what became of the IP but I will be revisiting that soon. GTA 2 was a top down open-ish world when I would play it on the PS1 no one really took it seriously and we’d start the game with cheats and just fuck-off for 20-30 min game sessions it wasn’t until the 3D Grand Theft Auto universe was created that Grand Theft Auto became the game I hold so near and dear. I adored GTA 3 but was never good enough to beat it, Vice City and San Andreas hold a special place in my heart for just how involved in them I would get, the sheer amount of times I beat them and the endless hours I sunk into those universes. Mortal Kombat Armageddon and Vengeance in particular were my favorite of the MK universe. The PS2 is still a relevant device to me currently. The Gamecube became very cheap and I bought one new with the remakes of Zelda OoT and Majora’s Mask this is was first contact for me in terms of 3D Zelda Games and they were great, my fondest memories of this console were beating True Crime Streets of New York and playing Super Smash Brothers Melee with friends.

I played portables up to the Gameboy SP and Micro Era, I still wish I got into the Nintendo DS systems and the PSP on Sony’s end and am currently working towards doing this in the near future to expand my Gaming Horizons. I still haven’t decided between a Xbox One, PS4 or Building a PC none have solidified me being sold, so the resolve of that will be coming to the blog soon. I stopped playing video games from the time I was 16 until I was 18, I lost touch a lot with the direction gaming went in the last game I played (that was my own,) before owning an Xbox360 was Stranger’s Odyssey and Fable on the original Xbox. I still played, hopping into multiplayer games, fighting games, maybe some waves of horde on Gears, Maybe a song on Guitar Hero if I could set it to medium, but we played a lot of Peggle despite this. I feel I missed out on a crucial chunk of gaming and currently struggle with First Person Shooters and Fighters these are things I want to work on these and explore these genres in between platformers and RPGs and share my experiences with you all, cus I love ya. I got back into gaming because it brought me back to older time because I was conquering mountains that I once dared to not cross paths with in my youth, playing through 11 of the Final Fantasy titles, playing some newer titles and beating games I struggled with as a child. Currently in the last couple years I’ve struggled with balancing a healthy Game life to Social Life to Work Life Ratio and found that I have a bias in favor of single player gaming experiences, maybe because they can arguably be more personal but because I personally don’t think a game is worth its salt unless it can stand up on the single player experience alone, this is another bias I’d like to be straight forward about. To explore new ground and solidify my skills as a gamer I will be replaying old classic, new titles, genres I hold near and dear as well as genres I may not normally go out of my way to play. Lastly I believe games are art and you probably believe the same if you’re interested in this type of media, I hope you find something here for you, something you can enjoy, maybe a laugh or two and remember, keep on gaming!